Best Careers 2008: User Experience
A couple weeks back U.S. News published an article titled “Best Careers of 2008” that highlights a list of 31 jobs the magazine considers to have strong outlooks for the future and overall high employee job satisfaction. Although the definition of Usability Specialist by U.S. News is somewhat generic (most likely to include multiple industries ) It’s still great to see a web related career on the list. I’ve always wondered if people outside of the web development community were even aware of usability as a profession and it’s importance to a good consumer experience. It seems so often that even seasoned professionals will often times discount the importance of the user experience so it’s great to see usability getting some recognition from the outside world.
On a somewhat related note, i ran across a new tool called GigZig, from the Payscale people. It’s a “career path explorer” that allows users to type in a career title and see what positions people have held 5 years prior to that title and what positions they might hold 5 years in the future. The tool attempts to give a rough estimation of how many people have followed a certain path by illustrating with little people icons. Using “User Experience Specialist” as an example on GigZig we can see that in the past those people have been Web Designers or Developers and in the future they are Product Managers, Directors. Nothing earth shattering about that profession’s results but the tool could be really useful for those looking to get into certain professions if they’re unclear of what path to follow. The data is a little skimpy at the moment but product is still in beta so hopefully more people take the surveys so the experience is more robust.
